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VIDEO: We take a look at where Taylor calls 'home'
BRAVE Taylor Stallard spends so much time in hospital battling her debilitating condition that she tells people it's where she lives.
The three-year-old faces a daily battle against a host of conditions, including chronic lung disease and having no immunity system.
The Mail went to visit Taylor at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary to see just how she copes for the eight months of the year she's there.
Her latest visit included a marathon six hours of treatment with doctors spending the first five hours filling up her body intravenously with antibodies to top up her immunity system, which is almost non-existent.
They then spent the next hour passing a saline solution through her system to make sure all the intravenous lines which feed her are clear.
But Taylor is not fazed by this at all. "It doesn't bother her," says her mum Nichola Groom, 21. "She will happily sit and watch a DVD and not budge through the whole thing."
The youngster has been through this a dozen times or more times in her short life.
"When she is finished, she always tells people 'the hospital has got me mended again'," says Nichola.
Yet astonishingly, the youngster has anything but hospital procedures on her mind. She is full of excitement.
Bright-eyed Taylor has been told the man from the Hartlepool Mail is coming to see her in hospital.
The three-year-old, who lives in the Dyke House area of Hartlepool, proudly declares: "It's my photoshoot."
"She's getting used to this," says Nichola. "She's turning into a little star."
Mum casts a loving look towards her daughter. She reveals how Taylor's brush with fame has proved a real tonic for the toddler.
"She told me she wanted her hair straightened for the Mail coming.
She's never asked for that before," said her smiling mum.
It is a light-hearted moment which masks a sombre truth. Taylor is destined to spend most of her life at the RVI where she has already had 12 operations.
She is on a daily supply of oxygen to cope with chronic lung disease. She also has no immune system to fight off infections.Proud mum Nichola and grandma Debbie Groom, 43, who is registered as Taylor's full-time carer, are always there for her.
One brief moment is a perfect illustration of the harsh reality.
"Taylor, where do you live?" asks Debbie. "RVI" replies the toddler without having to pause to think.
Taylor needs a bone marrow transplant, but she can't have one because her lungs will attack her immunity system. She needs a lung transplant, but she cannot have one because her immunity system will attack her lungs.
It's a Catch-22 situation which means doctors can merely make Taylor as comfortable as possible.
Doctors have told Taylor's family to enjoy the time they have left with the toddler.
Debbie explains how hospital visits have taken over their lives.
"We spend more time here than we do at home. We go home from hospital.
We wash clothes and dry them. We pack the clothes and we come back."
Even when they come home to Hartlepool, the family know the next trip to hospital is already on the horizon.
They usually receive a phone call from Taylor's consultant on the day they get home. It tells them of the date that the toddler must return to hospital – usually within two weeks.
The Mail wants to make Taylor's life easier.We are hoping readers can raise 2,800 for a wheelchair which will give her a better quality of life.
We've already passed the 2,000 mark.
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Weather for Hartlepool
Saturday 11 February 2012
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Temperature: 2 C to 4 C
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